


Movement

by foxdreams



Series: Tempo // Movement [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But he figures it out in the end, Coming Out, Extreme sap, Friends to Lovers, I will tell you straight up we will be taking a detour into comphet Sora, Liberal use of dance as metaphor, Liberal use of dearly beloved, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Sora, Requited Love, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Soriku - Freeform, The boy has lots of feelings, This time we're playing fast and loose with dance terminology, We're in Sora's POV now folks, melancholy with a sappy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 08:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18847717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxdreams/pseuds/foxdreams
Summary: [Movement is a companion fic to Tempo, and I highly suggest reading that one first if you haven’t already. Both stories contain slightly different views of similar scenes and events. They are meant to be read together.]If Sora’s life was a dance, it was a chaotic one—one full of missteps and backtracks and step-ball-changes that made it look like the dancer was careening around the stage, even though you knew, somewhere, somebody had given them the steps. They were only doing what they were shown, reproducing it for the benefit of the viewer, but the audience felt it all the same, gasped and clapped at all the right places, the words translated into spins and falls and graceful dives, because in the end, all it was was a story.(Dancer!Sora and Pianist!Riku AU: Part 2!)





	Movement

**Author's Note:**

> Movement is a companion fic to Tempo, and I highly suggest reading that one first if you haven’t already. Both stories are told from opposing points of view (Tempo being Riku and Movement being Sora) and contain slightly different views of similar scenes and events.
> 
> Both stories make use of a little bit of unreliable narration, so just like mirror images, reading both back to back will give you more of a complete view of the truth when they meet in the middle.
> 
> I really was prepared to let Tempo lie as a standalone--and it works as one!--but something really possessed me to try and dive into Sora's side of the story, and then it became this monster. So, for those who wanted more Sora (And Riku, of course): Here it is.
> 
> This fic also comes with a playlist because I can’t be stopped: https://open.spotify.com/user/foxdreams/playlist/1XvSaSbVe3FWfHergep8TQ?si=-IarGSMnRsq1hXhdQfAtHw
> 
> A tip: Sky Full of Song is my author choice for The Solo Dance scene in this fic. You'll know the one.

If Sora’s life was a dance, it was a chaotic one—one full of missteps and backtracks and step-ball-changes that made it look like the dancer was careening around the stage, even though you knew, somewhere, somebody had given them the steps. They were only doing what they were shown, reproducing it for the benefit of the viewer, but the audience _felt_ it all the same, gasped and clapped at all the right places, the words translated into spins and falls and graceful dives, because in the end, all it was was a story.

 

\-----

 

Even as a kid, Sora had to be moving. Preferably forward, but any direction was fine, really: even up the couch, or his mom’s legs, or the tree outside his window.

He remembered holding Ven’s hand tightly, clasping and hauling as they both, laughing, ascended the rough bark, heedless of scrapes and splinters they would both be sporting the next day. They stayed up there for hours until their mom’s panicked voice came through the windows, calling their names.

They didn’t call back, not for a long time, safe in their secret place, whispering and giggling about the names of the stars they would name like nonsense secrets they held between them. Ven was 3 years older and constantly reminding Sora of that fact, but he could never say no to Sora’s needling challenges.

When their dad was gone, it became a safe haven, a high place above the world where heavy, adult things--like the way their mom would stand in the kitchen, sometimes, clasping a mug of tea long gone cold and staring listlessly out of the window--couldn’t reach them. The house, once sunny and warm and cheery yellow, began to feel impenetrable, oppressive and dark, especially when she forgot to turn the lights on in the evenings like she did after he disappeared from their lives.

Ven had to stand on a chair to reach the switch, back then, bathing her and the kitchen in a dim, flickering fluorescent glow. She hadn’t bothered to replace the bulbs since he left.

“He was so _good_ ,” she would tell them, hands still mindlessly tracing her cup. “Your dad. I wish you would have gotten to know him more.”

Sora _didn’t_ know him; only got glimpses through the few framed photos around the house, a reedy, sandy haired man with his arm around his mom, smiling in front of some flat, ruddy looking mountains. The photo said _Greetings from the Grand Canyon_ across the bottom. To Sora, who had no concept of distance, then, it may as well have been a fairyland, in some other world.

He rubbed his thumb over the glass, sometimes—covered and uncovered the strange man’s face, as if to see if he would remember something more about him, this time--but it always felt the same: empty, like a cup that should have been full.

He was like a stubborn ghost, clinging to their lives. As time went on, as all spirits did, he faded, but was never really gone.

He was thinking about his mom the day he first met Riku.

Scaling the monkey bars had taken the majority of his attention, because Ven had told he he would _never_ be able to make a jump from the top of the set to a stick they stuck in the dirt like a finish line, but he _knew_ he could because he could jump longer than that in his _sleep_.

At the top of the bars, surveying his kingdom, he saw a shock of silver hair, alone in the sandbox, and frowned. The boy looked up--because it was a boy, probably, Sora figured, had seen him a few rows in front of him in class, but never spoke to him--and did a really good impression of his mom when she was staring into her photo albums.

It was so _sad_.

Something inside of him tightened, stuffy and uncomfortable like cotton balls.

His feet made the decision before he did.

 _Oops_ , he thought, because he had accidentally misjudged, and landed _on_ the castle. It was a pretty impressive leap, though, all the same. He hoped Ven had seen it from the other side of the bars, wanted to turn and gloat except the silver haired boy looked really angry, all of a sudden.

“Hey, whacha doing?” he said to the head of silver hair.

“You ruined my castle,” he spat back.

It was fine, because Sora knew they would be friends. He would make _sure_ of it.

Meeting Riku was kind of like a _Glissade_ : slow and easy, but anything but simple.

 

\-----

 

Sora had always had an awareness of being too _much._ It was something he knew in his bones, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t _supposed_ to.

Too many incidents of hiding behind corners while his mom said words like _difficult_ to her friends, and too many incidents of entering classrooms as his teachers fell silent, watching him-- like they were waiting for him to _do_ something--meant that he had a constant awareness of his limbs he didn’t really want.

The best part about Riku was he made him forget that, for a while. He didn’t have a constant stream of adults swarming him, asking him questions he didn’t want to answer about his thoughts, which were just a little too _fast_ for him to keep up with, sometimes.

Riku never made him feel like he was a _problem_.

He liked that Sora had a million questions and wanted to hear all his stories, maybe even liked that he had to run around, sometimes, just to focus better. If he broke something here and there, it was no big deal, because Riku’s parents weren’t there to make it one.

That was how they climbed the ancient creaky ladder to the attic and found two plastic swords that had probably been there from before Riku had moved in, stored away in a carved wooden pirate chest with a busted lock.

Riku lifted them, testing their weight like they were real swords.

Sora, meanwhile, had found a sheet with holes cut out for makeshift eyes. “Riku, look!” he said, flailing his arms wildly. “I’m a ghoooost!” He ran around in circles, dust clinging to his steps, until he tripped over a full shoebox and slammed face first into the floor, sending a massive cloud up with him that blocked some of the dim light. He was laughing even with the wind knocked from him.

Riku held the sword aloft, testing out battle stances. He was used to Sora tripping over things by now. “Don’t say that so loud. We have a real ghost, you know. She’s gonna hear you.”

Sora paused on his hands and knees. “She? Wait. _Really_ ?” His eyes were huge under the sheet. “ _You didn't tell me you had a ghost_!” He hissed, in terror or excitement.

Both weapons secured, Riku made to leave, but he looked at Sora over his shoulder. “She’s a scary old lady and she’s gonna show up behind you tonight when you sleep and scream at you just for saying that.”

He began descending the ladder.

“ _Rikuuu_ !” Came the predictable call. “Don’t leave me up here with the _ghooos_ t!”

“But I thought you _were_ the ghost, Sora!” Came the call back. Sora almost _cried_ right there.

He laughed all the way down the ladder, but he helped Sora down, anyway, sheet and all.

 

\-----

 

“Okay. What if dragons attacked us right _now_?”

They had been reading _Oathkeeper_ , holed up on window seats in the library--More like Riku had read it to Sora because he had an easier time with reading, period--and dragons had attacked the group at their campsite, separating them as havoc descended. They were most of the way through book 2, because they had to go at Sora’s pace, which was _slow_ because he kept interjecting scenarios and acting out scenes.

Riku thought about it, idly spinning the plastic sword. “No problem. I have a sword, so I’d protect you.”

Sora squinted at him over his own sword. They’d been play fighting beforehand, but neither of them really understood the specifics of sword fighting, so it was mostly hitting each other savagely and laughing. “What if there’s like, _two_ dragons?”

Riku plucked the other plastic sword from Sora’s hands, holding both aloft. “I have two arms!”

“Okay,” Sora drug out the sound and swiped the sword back, “What if there’s like, _fifty_ dragons and then a big stone monster comes out of nowhere to grab me?”

Riku thought about it. “Then I would use magic and cast a giant barrier around us, obviously.”

Sora nodded, crossing his arms. That was a satisfying answer. “Okay, then you can be my knight.”

Riku frowned. “Why are _you_ the King?” In the story, the King was traveling with his companions on their quest ro restore balance to the universe.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody, so you have to be the knight. Also, I called dibs,”

“Sora,” Riku said, exasperated. “Even Kings have to fight sometimes. And you can’t become a King by calling dibs!”

“Not me,” Sora insisted. “I would be a _pacific_ King! And you can be King by calling dibs in my kingdom.”

“ _Pacifist_ ,” Riku corrected. “I read that in the dictionary yesterday.”

“That’s what I said,” Sora insisted, cheeks already warming. He didn’t like it when Riku made him feel _stupid_ , like that, when he knew what he meant anyway.

Riku barreled on anyway. “No, you said _pacific_ —like the ocean.”

“No I _didn’t_ !” Sora insisted, and his eyes were already pricking with tears, and he scrubbed at them, because he already _felt_ stupid _._

 _“_ Pacifist is—“

 _“I’m not dumb, Riku! You’re dumb!”_ It exploded out of him before he’d gotten much further, tiny fists clenched into tiny palms and curled in, like he really was going to fight. He had dropped the sword.

Riku _looked_ at him, and the sword; just looked with his annoying, understanding eyes, like he could take Sora apart with them, if he wanted. Like he saw right to his insides.

“You don’t mean that, Sora,” he told him, calmly, too old for his age. Sora kind of _hated_ that he was so good at making him calm down, in that moment.

He deflated anyway.. “No. I don’t,” he said, not meeting his gaze. He kicked at the sword he had dropped. “But I’m _not_ stupid, Riku.”

Riku ruffled Sora’s hair affectionately. “I know you’re not.” His smile turned conspiratorial. “Besides. You’re the _King_ , remember? You can just exile anyone that calls you stupid.”

Sora beamed, all tears suddenly dry. “Yeah! And when I’m king, I’m making school _illegal_.”

The other boy snorted.

That day, he decided Riku was his best friend.

Befriending him was like a _Tendu:_ baby steps toward something new.

 

\-----

 

They were a few months into their friendship when _it_ happened.

It’s not that he had _meant_ to do it--it’s just that when Riku slept over he forgot, sometimes, that he had to be careful. His house often felt more like a prison, filled with objects and people that never moved, never changed. Even Ven, who was growing up withdrawn, quieter every year, felt like just another one of those things he wasn’t _allowed_ to get close to.

Sora was a tornado that couldn’t always predict where he would touch down, and the closer Riku was, the more he forgot.

Sora’s mom mom was framed in the hallway light like a looming giant, looking at him with such _disappointment_ he wanted to shrink into the floor with the shattered remains of the lamp at his feet.

“Why can’t you be more like _Ven_?”

She had only said it once, but it was enough to send it vibrating through the whole cave of his chest, hitting every box on the way down until it hit the bottom, where he kept all the ugly things. It was enough to _hurt_ , and she realized it, covered her mouth and the slow dawning horror, fell to her knees on the crunchy ceramic remains and leaned toward him.

She hugged him right after he’d started to cry, apologizing over and over again for the lamp and and himself, probably, because he couldn’t _help_ it but was sorry all the same. He just couldn’t seem to stop breaking things, just by being _himself_.

He ran back to his room, broke free of her arms like he was _good_ at and slammed the door of his bedroom. Riku took one look at him and dropped his book, because Sora launched himself bodily into his arms.

“What happened, Sora?” Riku asked him immediately, and brought his arms down experimentally, hesitantly, like he wasn’t used to it but was trying anyway.

“Broke the lamp,” Sora sniffed, “A-and mom told me I should be more like my brother.”

Riku shook his head so violently his silver hair almost hit Sora across the face. “No way. You’re Sora. You can’t be him, too.”

“I think I’m _bad_ , Riku.” The idea crawled up his throat, made it painful to talk around it. He felt tears welling up again. His chest felt tight and dark and _heavy_.

Riku hugged him, fiercely, the tightest he ever had. “You’re just _big_ , Sora. It’s okay.”

He wasn’t sure if that was _good_ or not. He wanted to be _good_ , though--good made his mom’s face go soft and proud and he wanted her to wear that look for _him_ . He was _here_ , and his dad wasn’t.

He felt his eyes drooping shut, drowsy, because Riku had started running his fingers through his hair. It was quiet for a few minutes when Riku finally spoke. “Do you want to hear a story? I just thought of a new one.”

He turned his face into Riku’s collarbone, but cracked an eye open. “What’s it about?”

“A hero with light powers so bright he burns people accidentally, but he saves the whole world when the sun goes out.”

He soaked his pajama shirt, that was for sure, but Sora found that Riku gave pretty good hugs, and he felt warmer there, so it was okay. He fell asleep before the end of the story.

That was the first time Riku slept over because Sora wouldn’t let him go.

He never really could.

 

\-----

 

“You’re going to dance class tomorrow,” his mom told him the next day.

“ _Dance class_?” he repeated it with revulsion, his nose wrinkling. “Why?”

She felt the fight coming, and she pressed her hands over her eyes, like she did every time the school called and told her things about him. He couldn’t hear the words, but he could imagine them in the muffled sound from the phone.

“ _Please_ , Sora,” she begged him. “Just try it.” 

He went to dance class. 

The teacher, who introduced herself as Ms. Aqua, took his hand from his mom and brought him to a warm exposed brick room with mirrors along one wall and a wooden barre along the other, where a neat row of other students, mostly girls, were lined up in matching tutus. He was just in his sports clothes, so he was sure he stuck out in the sea of pink, and he was already fidgeting, because he was nervous and that’s what he _did_ , constantly.

She was warm, though, and smiled at him, and that was all Sora really needed to decide he liked someone, so he smiled back. She led them through basic stretches, and he was already having fun trying to touch his toes and making weird faces at the girls behind him in line when Ms. Aqua called his attention back.

“Okay, let’s start with some exercises, just to loosen up. Sora--since you’re new, can you show the class something?”

Terrified was an understatement, but he wanted to be brave, so he nodded. He was a King, after all. Riku had said so.

“Sora--I’m going to say a feeling, and you’re going to pretend to feel it. Then, I’m going to ask you to dance around the room and try and _show_ everyone the feeling. Do you think you can do that?”

He nodded, even though he wasn’t sure. “It can be as silly as you want, okay? This is just a warmup. It’s called _improvising_. There’s no wrong way to dance, it’s all just movement.”

The other students nodded, like they had done and heard this before, and they shot him encouraging smiles, and that made it easier.

“Ready?” She turned away from him to turn on something in the corner and soft music piped through the speakers.

“How would you dance if you were happy?”

 _That_ was easy. He did a silly high step around the room, almost like a march, like he was hopping the entire way.

“Now--sad!”

He bent his back forward and almost dragged on the ground like the old woman he’d pretended to be with Riku last week as he read from a novel. Riku had laughed so hard he’d turned red and fallen out of the chair, so he knew it was good. 

“Try angry!”

Squaring his shoulders, he balled his fists and probably turned red from how tense he felt across his chest, and he spun and threw himself around the room, and at the same time something in him _released,_ unraveled and came undone.

“One last one,” she called over the music. “Show us excited!”

That was the easiest of all. He took a running leap, counted the steps--one, two three--pretended he was at the edge of a cliff and _jumped_ for all he was worth, and for a second it felt like freedom, and flying, and _home_. 

Aqua clapped for him, and he found he _liked_ the attention. “Excellent job, Sora!”

He was out of breath and bewildered, beaming, staring wild-eyed at himself in the mirror, because nothing had felt like _that_ in his entire young life and now he never wanted to _stop._

“He really is a natural,” Aqua gushed to his mom, when she came to pick him up. She was thirty minutes late but he didn’t mind, for once, because he was still dancing, whirling around the room in joy, laughing, having a hard time stopping now that he’d let all that _feeling_ out. “I _do_ hope you bring him back.”

The smile on his mom’s face was so bright it was blinding. It said: _finally._

It had been a long time since she’d used that smile on him.

She brought him back.

That day, he found that a _Jeté_ felt an awful lot like _flying._

 

\-----

 

Throughout his life, Sora had a reoccurring dream.

In the dream, he was standing at the edge of a castle turret. The wind was high because he was so close to the sky, close enough to touch it, if he wanted, and the wind whipped his clothes and wanted him too, whispered things to him, caressed his ears with their sweetness. Sometimes birds would wing by him, silhouetted by the candy colored sunrise, and he would watch them go and long to be among them, would feel the _wanting_ more keenly than he’d felt anything in his waking life, to that point, would feel his hands twitch in their place, clinging to the flagpole and his feet kept their uneasy spots on the roof tiles.

An entire world was laid out below him, snow ripped mountains and a forest that went on for miles, even little inroads and towns speckled throughout.

He would stare down from his place on the ledge, and the wind would tell him what to do. The light spilling over the mountains was blinding, and he wanted to bring up his hands against it if only he wasn’t using them to cling with.

It told him to jump, because if he did, he would _fly,_ if he could only let go of the parapet.

 _I can’t_ fly, he would tell the voice on the winds. _I would die if I jumped now!_ His hands would grip tighter to the tower, feet trying to find the safer cracks in the wall. He was barefoot, in the dreams, and the rock felt scratchy on his skin.

The voice would press on, undaunted, tempting him with the promise of that which he wanted most.

Every time, he would resist, and it felt like _hours_ he was up there, his limbs slowly feeling heavier and heavier, the pain then graduating to soreness and fatigue. His body would start to betray him, too—beg him to let go, because if he didn’t, it would do it for him, whether he was ready or not.

Eventually, he would slowly edge his way to the very lip of the rock, heart in his throat, peering down the long distance to the dusty looking ground below. He wasn’t afraid of heights, never was, but in the dream it felt like more than just distance.

 _Are you happy now?!_ He would yell at the voice, arms spread wide for balance, defiant against his fate. _I’m going to jump!_

The gusting wind died to a gentle breeze, caressed his face with its currents, but was silent.

He was alone.

Every time, in the dream, he coiled his body like a spring, reveled in the potential movement within himself, in the power that came from being _contained_ . He would still, take in a breath too big for his lungs to contain, grab for the very edge with his toes, and with a final look—up, this time, to the clouds above—he _lept_.

He dropped like a stone, at first—cold certainty gripping his insides as the ground rushed up to meet him, almost a satisfaction in there, that he was _right,_ and he would squeeze his eyes shut against the whipping wind _—_ before he felt them, beating at his back, too heavy and ungainly for his small frame, hauling him up into the open air of their own accord—he had _wings_.

He _flew_ , and the delight of it bubbled up in him and erased all the anxiety that had lived there before, made his chest light and buoyant like the air he traveled on, made him feel so incandescent he could disappear that very moment, a thousand currents of air, and never return to earth. He whooped with the feeling, dove and spun and made daring dives into the trees only to pull up at the last moment, watching the vertices ruffling at his speckled primaries as he caught the current, effortless and _free_.

Nobody was in that place with him, he had checked—he didn’t need to be _careful_ , here, and the thought would send him rocketing up to meet the rising sun, so close it almost _burned,_ as it sliced right through his pajamas _—_ before he let himself relax into a freefall, tumbling, laughing all the while, a vision like Icarus without the trappings of wax.

Every time, he woke up—tangled in sheets, usually—he checked his back in the mirror, just in case. Let his eyes roam over his shoulder blades, bony and sharp and covered in freckles, but, sadly, mortal. Less often as he grew up, but the disappointment remained with the ghost of the feeling, like he could remember the _shape_ of it but couldn’t hold the entirety of it in his heart, while he was awake. Like the phantom sensation of feathers at his back.

He would spend his life chasing that feeling, he knew it like he knew his own name, like he knew he wanted to be _good_.

The first time he danced, he felt like maybe he could get close.

They told his mom he was a natural, but he’d been flying his whole life.

 

\-----

 

They were 10 and 11, and Sora liked Riku endlessly.

He liked Riku for his stories and his honesty and his intelligence, liked him for being capable and imaginative and willing to teach Sora about the world, endlessly patient even when it took him a few minutes to sit still, even when he couldn’t sit still that day at all, and would talk to anyone who would listen about all of those things for hours if they let him.

The part that threw him was why Riku liked _him_.

The thing with Sora was he was, generally, useless with remembering a thought past the moment he thought it, so he thought it better to get it out, preserve it before it slipped from his mind.

He was in his assigned place on the bottom bunk—his duvet was bright red and patterned with little gold crowns, because it reminded him of _Oathkeeper_ , and he had an army of stuffed animals shoved into the crack between the mattress and the wall, the better to hide them from the other boys. Riku wouldn’t care, because he knew he liked to be comfortable, liked waking up with arms full of them when they slept in on Sunday mornings if he was over.

“Why do you like me, Riku?”

He heard shifting on the top bunk, could just picture the way one of the older boy’s eyebrows was migrating towards his hairline.

“Because I’m stuck with you in this cabin in the woods and you know where I sleep, so I’m making the best of it.” He said it deadpan, from behind a book, so Sora hauled himself up and scaled the bunk ladder in one swift motion, landing on Riku with a little too much forward momentum.

“ _Ow_ ,” he wheezed out, because Sora had stuck a bony elbow in his gut on the descent. He had dropped his book and visibly winced at the idea of page damage--Sora knew he liked to keep his things perfect, so he closed it for him. “What _gives_ , Sora?”

“I’m serious, Riku,” he huffed, looking up at him. His face was very, very close, and Sora was tracking his eyes with his own as they glanced anywhere but himself.

Riku’s ears went pink. “I dunno,” he said, uncomfortable. “Would you get _off_ \--” He made to push Sora away, but he was too quick and leaned back, out of reach.

“I’m _Riku_ ,” Sora said dramatically, miming a book between his hands. “I like Sora because he’s soooo cool and really good at dancing and really funny and he tells the best stories!” He singsonged it as Riku swatted at him, edged backwards on the bunk as Riku lunged for him.

“I do _not_ sound like that, Sora, shut up—“

Sora was laughing, and Riku was smirking, grabbing the other boy’s hands and attempting to wrestle him down, but Riku had the height advantage already so Sora stuck a foot in his face for leverage and so they tumbled, instead, a pile of limbs.

He didn’t _mean_ to lose his balance, but the next thing he knew Sora had a taste of flying, tumbling backwards through open air, thought he saw Riku’s hand reach over the side of the bunk and miss, fingers clutching at nothing. The second stretched for miles.

Sora landed on his tailbone, which was better than his neck, so he simply groaned and rolled over, rubbing the throbbing of his lower back, but happy to be alive. The sound he had made was loud, but the other boys were at some campfire or other for the night, so nobody was around to hear it.

Riku’s panicked head appeared over the side of the top bunk. “Sora, are you—I tried to grab you--are you okay—should I get a counselor?”

Sora, who had an entire lifetime of falls out of trees and off counters and out of missed dance steps that prepared him for this, was mostly amused. He sent him a sunny grin. “I’m fine! Bet I looked cool, though.”

Riku’s mouth made a hard, thin line, and he climbed down the ladder forcefully, almost stabbing into the rungs, his knuckles white. With a tug, he yanked Sora up by his shirt, dusted his clothes off and looked him over, as if for fall damage. He even turned it around and pulled his shirt up, inspecting the no-doubt forming bruise on his back. Sora squeaked as he was turned around.

Riku fixed him with a serious, displeased gaze, electric aqua eyes reminding him of his mom, making him want to shrink with guilt. His frown seemed fixed on.

Then, he crushed him to his chest, hand coming up behind his head to bury in his hair. “I wish you’d be more careful,” Riku told him. Sora felt his heart through his shirt. It was beating too fast.

He was very warm, so Sora hugged him back, closed his eyes in the hollow of his shoulder and inhaled, the scene of clean laundry and something just...Riku. It felt a little bit like home, even though they were at camp.

“I can’t help it, Riku,” He admitted, quietly. He really couldn’t.

“I know,” Riku replied. He paused, then sighed; his shoulders drooped with the motion. “ _That’s_ why I like you, I guess. You’re brave. Sometimes really _stupid_ , but really brave too.”

“You’re brave too!” He shot back.

“Yeah—when you’re around to _make_ me brave,” He muttered, like an omission.

“It’s okay. That’s why we have each other,” Sora insisted confidently. He tapped the taller boy on the chest, just once. “Besides. You’ll protect me.”

“Just do me a favor and don’t try to dive off any more bunks tonight. I haven’t learned how to fly yet,” Riku told him.

“I’ll try,” Sora whispered; _tried_ because all the promises he’d been making lately went unfulfilled. “Just until you learn, since I already know how.”

That night, he could tell Riku wanted to sleep next to him before it actually happened—could see it in his anxious glances, in the way he dressed for bed with exaggerated slowness, the way he kept asking Sora if he was awake, and okay, and what he thought about some song he was working on, because Riku could never stop _working_ on things, even at camp.

Whether it was the fear of heights or something else, Sora didn’t know. Just knew that he woke up in the middle of the night with Riku’s arms wrapped around his middle, and let him be, pulled the covers up to his neck so he would be warm, and went back to sleep.

He was back in his own bunk by early morning, because neither of them wanted to face questions from the other boys.

If his heart felt a little like a bird, stirring, he didn’t question it.

He liked Riku, before. He always had. But after that, it started to become something else, or maybe it always was.

The feeling was like Relevé: a careful, gentle rise.

 

\-----

 

They grew up, and more photos covered the walls. Him and Ven’s school portraits, mostly, and sometimes Christmas photos or even art projects they had brought home, all framed and in their proper place. He had snuck a few photos of Riku and him in there, too—a picture of them in front of their camp and a few recital photos. 

In the middle of them all was his dad, the only photo his mom had left up after she’d packed away the photo albums in the cabinets in the living room, safe but unused.

His mom, if she ever talked about it at all, talked around the space where he’d been—like his leaving hadn’t been intentional, and final, and severing—talked as if it was something that happened _to_ them, shattered them all, and not something he had chosen to do.

They didn’t know where he was, now—his mom had probably tried, but he didn’t want to think about that, think about long phone calls to investigators promising her the world.

It was the only thing he really didn’t talk to Riku about--it was too painful a memory to bring up, painful in a way it had no right to be, because Sora never knew the man, and so exhausting to explain to someone who just...wouldn’t get it that he never tried. He might understand, logically, but it wasn’t... _the same._ And that was okay.

It took him longer to realize his dad could have been... _good_ , to his mom, for a while. He could be both good, past tense, and a shitty excuse for a human being that had left them, present tense.

The two shadows of him in Sora's mind intersected and mingled until they became something bigger, something else.

His heart hurt, to think about it. So he didn't.

Put that in a box, too, and threw away the key.

 

\-----

 

They were 13 and 14, and Sora was growing into himself.

He danced plenty on his own, when he could--was going to whatever classes would take him, even if it meant dancing with little kids or below his level, because the more he exhausted his brain, the easier time he had with...everything else.

But his favorite thing to do was dance with Riku, because it felt different, somehow, when they were alone.

Sometimes, when they were together, he would dance--but other times he would take up vigil in the window seat, basking in the sun from the french windows, and just watch Riku play. 

Riku was so _small_ when he’d started playing, and Sora had teased him for his feet not reaching the ground, even though Sora’s hadn’t either.

The months had rolled into years and Riku had grown into the piano like he grew into his music, his back a little straighter and his hands a little softer every time, and his songs grew with him, symphonies and arias and a million sheets of music stuffed into folders on the stand.

Of course, Riku grew, too. His hair got longer, wilder and thicker, and eventually he started to fill out his height, and something inside Sora ached as they both grew up in the safety of their safe little world.

Sora was watching Riku one day, and he was playing something beautiful and strong and soft with just the barest hint of pressure, so gentle under his hands it felt like a caress, and Sora’s heart was stretching out, expanding to fill the whole room before he knew what was happening. His head had been back against the window, listening to the soft fall of the rain, and he cracked an eye open in the dim light. He had the most serene expression he’d ever seen on him, gently angled down, silhouetted in the failing light, and Sora thought maybe _this_ was happiness, somewhere between his best friend, the softly resonant notes, and the patter of the rain on the glass.

It stole the breath right from his mouth in a way it never had before, a way that felt like a lot like dreaming.

He had to press a hand to his pounding heart and shut his eyes to the sight.

By the time Riku was finished playing, he had dropped his hand, but the feeling—whatever it was—was there, the seed stubbornly sprouted, heedlessly pushing between his clasping fingers and reaching for the sun.

He wanted to reach out, but he didn't know why.

"Something wrong?" Riku asked him without looking up, because he'd stopped playing and Sora hadn’t stirred.

"Nothing," Sora breathed. He kept his eyes closed.

They drifted along like that for a while, a raft on the waves. It shouldn’t have been surprising when they inevitably hit a storm.

 

\-------

 

High school had swept in like a wave and brought things like sports teams and friends into Sora’s life, but took others--like his dancing--as casualties in its flood. It was _okay_ , he surmised--he still had his practice days with Riku, and that felt like a fitting compromise, a bridge between his past and present.

He was leaving lacrosse practice, intent on the music room, and Riku, when the direction of the wind suddenly changed.

“ _Look out_!” Several feminine voices were yelling.

He barely had time to look up, extending his arms in impulse before someone collided with him, knocked him clean over into the grass and all he knew was _pain_ and a face full of red and black fabric.

“ _Ow_ —God, I’m so sorry—are you okay?”

He wheezed by way of answer because his lungs felt raw on the inside. Something definitely felt _wrong_ with his face, that was for sure.

The girl that had had fallen on him covered her mouth. “Oh—oh you’re hurt, come with me, I’ll—take you to the nurse or something—“

She took him to the nurse, who was nice enough to pass him an ice pack for his shiny new black eye, and then told him her name was Kairi, that she was a cheerleader, albeit not a very good one, and that’s why she had failed a catch completely and landed on him instead.

Once the shock wore off, the pain started, so he lay back on the plastic bed with the nurse’s ice pack on his face. She winced.

“I’m still really sorry.”

“You have a hell of an elbow. Sure you don’t want to join lacrosse?”

She contemplated that for a moment. “You know, I do like the idea of hitting things. More than jumping around, anyway.”

“We should switch places,” Sora quipped. “I da--used to be a dancer.” He corrected himself at the last second, even though it twinged a little.

The nurse appeared, then, in the doorway. “Kairi? Your dad is here.” She made to stand, holding a hand out for him to take.

“I tried to get your mom, Sora, but nobody picked up. Is there someone else I can try?”

He felt his jaw set, painfully. There wasn’t, because Ven was at college and his mom had too many jobs to have time for him, and he was _okay_ with that. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “I can—I can drive myself, it’s fine.”

“You are _not_ driving yourself,” Kairi and the nurse said simultaneously, and so he felt very attacked.

“It’s no problem, really—“

She snagged his wrist before he could get another word in. “You’re telling my dad where you live and we are dropping you off, and that’s final.”

They dropped him off. His mom, at least, got a good laugh out of the story later, and that was good. It had been _too long_ since they’d laughed together, and the kitchen table felt a little less big for the two of them, for a bit.

He didn’t realize until much later than night that he’d missed his session with Riku, and by then it was too late to respond.

 

\-------

 

Riku called a makeup practice the next day, and he was sure not to miss it, that time.

“You’re late,” Riku said without looking up, as Sora barreled through the music room doors.

“Sorry,” Sora said, genuinely, like Riku didn’t know he was late _every_ time, anyway.

“I’ve got this bar I’m trying to work out and no matter what I do it just doesn’t _sound_ right--” He had been ripping at his hair again, Sora noted, because there were long silver strands that caught the afternoon sun and shone like little rings around his fingers.

Riku started when he finally looked up from the keys.

“What _happened_ to you?” The expression on his face would have been hilarious if it didn’t make Sora feel so _guilty_ for what he was about to do.

“Got into a fight,” Sora said nonchalantly, dropping his stuff beside him to sit on the piano bench. He was already fighting the laugh.

Riku’s hands slammed the keys involuntarily and the noise was _terrible_.

“ _What_?!”

“Relax, I’m kidding. Can you _imagine,_ though? Anyway, Kairi clocked me.” He rubbed at his nose sheepishly.

Something like tension crept into the other boy’s voice. “Who’s... _Kairi_?”

“A cheerleader. Mean right hook, though.”

Riku stared at him through his curtain of bangs, the way he did when he knew Sora was talking around the point for dramatic effect. “You should really join drama club,” he said, deadpan.

“Maybe I will. _They_ would appreciate my stories,” he quipped back automatically. “These things need to be told in order, Riku.”

Riku, who had abandoned all pretense of working, sent him another withering look, so Sora told him the story, in order.

“So she fell on you and gave you a black eye in the process,” Riku said, slowly turning back to the keys. “A match made in hell.”

Sora started, which was awkward because he had been mid-stretch. “Who said anything about a _match_?” He turned to peer into Riku’s face, fighting the urge to just blow the bangs from his face to get a better look.

But Riku wouldn’t _look_ at him; kept his face firmly away. “Everyone. The whole school is talking about it.” The set of his shoulders was tense, unyielding.

Sora frowned. “Why would they talk about that? It wasn’t that exciting. In fact, it kind of sucked.”

“Sora,” Riku told him, and he still wasn’t _looking_. “You’re the star of the lacrosse team. She’s a cheerleader. You literally caught her in your waiting arms like a bad YA novel. It doesn’t take much.”

He frowned harder. “What? First of all, she bowled me over, so I didn’t _catch_ anything but an elbow to the eye, which is honestly really sad. Secondly, I don’t even _know_ her!”

Something like ice was sliding its way into Riku’s tone, and it was gentle and cold and menacing, like an early morning before a storm. It was very _quiet_. “Maybe you should.”

He was officially lost. “I mean, I want to—she seems really cool, but—“

Riku abruptly closed his composition book. “I think we’re done here for today,” he said. He bent to violently shove his music back into his messenger bag and rose to stand.

Something like panic fluttered around Sora’s heart.

“Woah—hey—hold on, is this because I missed practice yesterday? I was a little busy with a black eye. I’m sorry.” He reached out, just the slightest press forward--but ever since they were young teenagers, Riku seemed like he didn’t _welcome_ his touch the same way, and Sora was trying to _remember_ that, so he let his hand drop.

Riku paused, but his head was already tilted down, away from him. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, still too _quietly_. “I’ll...see you tomorrow.”

Before he could respond, Riku was already gone, and the doors swung behind him.

He was alone, at the piano that didn’t feel right in an entirely empty room of instruments and bleachers and other things that were useless without the presence of other people. Somehow it seemed fitting.

Riku left him there, with the words _maybe you should_ ringing in his ears. He felt it, in the space left by the swinging music room doors: a foundation of something he couldn’t name. An uneasiness he couldn’t name took up residence in his heart.

He didn’t, in fact, see him tomorrow, and Sora was never sure, later, which one of them started pulling back first. Before he knew it, there was a divide, no matter how close they sat together on the bench

 

\--------

 

Kairi found him after practice the next week, still in her uniform. The bleachers had been calling his name after lacrosse, and he had taken to sitting there and--he wouldn’t call it _sulking_ , but it was--about Riku whenever he had a spare moment to think, so he tried to _not_ give himself any of those. The island never really got _cold_ , in Fall--just rainy--and it was refreshing, sometimes, to sit there and think.

He was struck by how _tiny_ she was when she wasn’t tackling him to the grass, but she had clear blue eyes and a friendly smile, and that was more than he had, by himself.

“Let me buy your dinner for giving you a black eye?” She paused and raised her eyes in thought. “Well. It’s not really me buying, since my mom owns the diner, but it’s still my treat, since I help out there sometimes.”

He liked her immediately, but he also liked free food a whole lot. Riku had been weirdly avoiding his texts, so he had nowhere to _be_ , and while he was _friendly_ with his teams, they never quite...fit, outside of practice. He had this unfortunate habit of being able to _make_ friends instantly, but never retain them. This...felt like a chance.

“I could really go for a burger, honestly,” he told her.

“Great, because I didn’t really have a backup plan on what I was going to say if you shot me down, so. I’d like to...start over.” She laughed, and he liked her right away for that.

He wasn’t used to that—usually he was the one pushing into people’s lives, trying to keep friends that would pull away when he pulled too close—all except for Riku. This was...new. Unexpected.

She extended a hand to him, and he put down his water bottle to take it. “I’m Kairi, she said. I’m a Sophomore, a Virgo, and I swear I don’t normally clock strangers.”

He took her hand. “Sora, also a Sophomore, I think I’m an Aries, and I guess I’m not a stranger, anymore, so it’s fine. Just maybe less elbow next time.”

Her eyes sparkled “ It’s nice to meet you, Sora. Properly.”

They took over the corner booth, the one with the aggressively checkerboard table and the sinfully squishy fire engine red seats. He told her about himself over the burgers, then he told her about Riku--and by extension, dancing--over the fries, and over the milkshakes they both talked about their parents.

She was adopted, she told him, and her birth parents didn’t _want_ to know her, as far as she knew.

Something in him woke up, made him reach across the table and take her hand, because he knew that feeling, intimately. She was startled for a moment and he had to remind himself he wasn’t with Riku, and that maybe normal people didn’t just... _do_ what he did—it had lost him friends before—but she grabbed back before he could, and smiled, and he thought maybe he was okay.

“My dad’s dead,” he ended up blurting out. It wasn’t the truth, but it was close, so it may have been.

“Ah,” she said. She didn’t say _I’m sorry_. Instead, she said: “It’s fucking awful, huh?” And passed him her shake.

Meeting her felt like pivot turn, like he was changing direction and pointing towards something new.

 

\-------

 

He kept trying to _join_ them in the coming weeks, Kairi and Riku, because he knew they would get along if he did—but the harder he tried to coax them together, the two facets of his life, the more they seemed to repulse, like two mighty planets resisting gravity. The more he tried to mix them, the more they separated, and the divide opened between them before he knew what had happened.

He was still sitting next to Riku on the bench, infrequent as it was becoming, pressed close enough to feel his heat, but the miles between them remained, no matter how much he pushed and pulled and tried to cross it.

Had seen so many facets of Riku, so many versions of anger and sadness and joy, but this was...something else. The best he could do was give him space, and time to figure out what to do. 

If...he really wanted him to leave, he would, if it was what Riku wanted—just wished he would have told him _why_ so he didn’t spend so many nights awake, staring at the photo of them on his nightstand and turning it over and over in his hands, like a puzzle box named Riku, his mind a loop of _what did I do wrong?_

He stepped forward, and, for the first time, Riku had stepped back and let him fall--something he thought his oldest, closest friend knew never to do.

He had never done that before, but once he had, Sora had no idea what to do.

So, eventually, slowly, carefully...he let go, hoping it was just a matter of time, but Riku never picked up the slack.

Losing him was like moving _en arriere_ \--he turned his face away.

 

\-------

 

  
While one half of his life was darkening, clouded and confusing and oppressive like a constant pressure on his mind, the other half was lightening, expanding, and he was _blossoming_.

 

Kairi introduced him to Naminé, who showed him the drama club, and he was, despite himself, smitten with them all--Roxas and Xion and Pence, Olette, and Hayner--all of them together was his new normal, and he spent many long days at the park with them, or sitting in one of the theater chairs upside down while they built sets or rehearsed, and even offered his help, sometimes, with choreography. He found he _liked_ them all, even _moreso_ because he felt the urge to check his phone obsessively less and less when he was there, surrounded by people.

 

He moved closer to Kairi, too--had spent days at her house, helping her with routines when she was stuck, because she hated cheerleading but it _looked good on law applications to do a sport_ , according to her dad, and she was brilliant and vivacious and easy to talk her, and that made it easier to look away from the storm in his mind.

 

Maybe they were heading towards something, Sora-and-Kairi, some inevitability he didn’t see because his eyes were turned away, because he was the only one surprised when it suddenly _shifted_ .

They were eating paopu fruit ice cream the night it happened. She had leaned in and pressed her lips to his, just the briefest of sticky touches, before she was pulling back again--just a bare few seconds of contact.  
  
He was sure he stuttered a few times, because she laughed, and that made him laugh too, even though his mind was desperately trying to catch up, but he couldn’t catch up when someone was talking to him, never could, so he...pressed it away, found it a box in his mind and stored it for later, in the dark and the quiet.  
  
“Are we...dating?” He asked her, a few minutes later.  
  
“Are we?” She mirrored, a curious, open expression on her face that meant she was thinking.  
  
He didn’t... _not_ want to. He loved talking to her, they got along, and it was more like...there was no reason they _shouldn’t_ . Her friends and even her dad had been needling her about it, she told him, and the lacrosse team had been doing the same to him. It felt like maybe it was _time_ , or something.  
  
So, they did. They _were_ .  
  
She left him for a few minutes to summon the check, and in the silence, he finally felt like breathing.  
  
It hadn’t...felt like _anything_ . The kiss, or the agreement. Sora, who felt everything, all the time, at a level so intense it made his head spin, sometimes—felt _nothing_ .  
  
It was _new_ . His eyes felt squeezed, all of a sudden, and he pressed his fingers into his eyelids. They were cold from the ice cream, and it grounded him; helped him to breathe.  
  
He wished desperately he could call Riku, right now—but he couldn’t—wanted to ask him if your first kiss was supposed to feel like _nothing_ , but the idea that Riku may have had personal experience with that...didn’t feel like _nothing_ , either.  
  
She returned, and he quickly gathered everything back into the box in his mind, and tried to smile.  
  
“Oh—your ice cream is melting.”

  
“You can have it,” he told her, distantly, and he slid it across the table. She caught his hand on the way over, and he almost flinched away in reflex, but relaxed a moment later.  
  
_It’s just Kairi_ , he told himself. He didn’t know who else he could have thought it was.  
  
Sleep didn’t come to him that night, or the night after. It took weeks for it to reach him, hours and hours after he’d rifled through the box in his mind, thoughts looping around and around and around and looking for answers that never came.

 

\-------

 

  
Days rolled into weeks and rolled into months, and Sora was living someone else’s life, and he was living it with half his heart on either side of the horizon line.  
  
Being both versions at once--above and below the surface--wasn’t an option, so he split his time, scheduled himself so deep in movie dates and coaching and parties that he never had a single second to breathe—and _liked_ it that way. That was the half that went to school, and hugged Kairi in the hallway, and threw himself into his classes in a way he’d never done before, and still tried to wave to Riku in the hallway even though the set of his shoulders made his heart _ache_ for hours after.

The other half was the one he couldn’t face, during the day, or else he’d break: snap like the fragile tightrope he was balancing on. That was the place he stored all his ugly, blackening feelings about Riku.  
  
Like wearing a tight suit, the new space he was making pinched and hemmed him in and forced him into an unnatural shape—-but became more normal the longer he forgot what the alternative felt like. 

Riku played the showcase.

Sora really didn’t think he would, in the end—figured he was so done with Sora, for whatever reason--he didn’t still know _why_ \--that he would have called the whole thing off, absolutely wouldn’t deign to embarrass himself any further.

Instead, Riku played the most beautiful, heartrending, _terrible_ thing he had ever heard, the feeling coming across so clearly in the song Sora clutched at his own heart through his shirt, sure he worried the people on either side of him, but it _tore_ , something between seeing the set of his back and the violence of the song, and in the tearing it felt like the box in his mind was wrenched open and the black, ugly things were exposed to the air, and he had no idea what to _do._  

It looked _twisted_ , the curve of his spine over the piano.

Riku left before the applause had ended, abruptly, back ramrod straight--left without looking back.

Sora skipped class that day. Didn’t exactly _mean to_ , just realized that before he knew it he had just..walked out, found his way to the bleachers and collapsed there, curled into his knees around the feelings he couldn’t name, cradling himself.

Kairi found him, some time later, staring into nothing. She entwined her hand with his, wordlessly, and if there was any moment he _should_ have loved her, it was then, in her silence.

For a moment, he thought she might try to kiss him—she was sitting very close, with her head on his shoulder—and something about it felt like too much—not today, not after _that_. But she didn’t, kept her face turned away, as if her half lidded eyes were seeing something far away, something he wasn’t privy to in the direction of the distant practice fields.

Her hand slackened in his grasp, imperceptibly, and it felt like the beginning of another divide, one more thing _changing_ , so he tightened his grip on her fingers.

She didn’t look at him again.

 

\-------

 

  
His world shifted again over strawberry milkshakes, on a Tuesday at the edge of Summer.  
  
Kairi had been relating a story from her latest production—she was stage manager, now, at Sora’s encouraging because she had a knack for directing and delegation, and also because not a single one of their friend group was mildly capable.  
  
He was mid laugh when he spotted them—his heart _skipped_ for a second, just long enough for him to realize that, no, the man was _not_ Riku—but his hair was close, and he was tugging another, shorter man along by the hand, and they were smiling, open and free.  
  
Maybe it was because he looked so much like Riku—maybe it was something else—but he couldn’t look away, not even when the shorter one tugged the taller one into a quick kiss. It was the gentlest thing, almost nothing—but they were both grinning after and the feeling was palpable and something profound and deep had just _clicked_ into place in his chest.

  
He numbly tipped his full glass of milkshake all over the table. She stood up immediately and starting handing him napkins, but he had broken out in a cold sweat and everything had just come to a screeching halt in his chest and he didn’t know _why_ .  
  
“Sora! What’s wrong with you?”  
  
He turned to her as if in a daze, utterly lost. “I—I don’t...know.”  
  
Following his line of sight, she craned her neck behind her and _looked_ —looked for several seconds, and then turned around. The expression on her face was so _calm_ .  
  
“ _Sora_ ,” she said again. She had taken her hand in his, and it was pleasantly warm, and grounding. She sounded profoundly calm. “I think I know already, but I need you to tell me, okay?”  
  
Words weren’t coming to his mind because all that was left, there, was static noise. “W-what?” Everything was coming out broken: his voice, his thoughts. The picture was shifting sideways, the horizon and everything with it.  
  
“I _know_ you, you’re a great guy and we’ve had a lot of fun together.” She sounded _prepared_ , like this was something she had rehearsed before, like she did in drama club.  
  
He had started ringing a napkin without realizing it, twitching it between his fingers and tearing, waiting for the _but_ .  
  
“So I know you’ll tell me the truth. You don’t _like_ me, do you?”  
  
He opened his mouth to argue—  
  
She raised a hand. “No. Not like a friend. Not even like a _best friend_ .”  
  
_Best friend_ made him think of Riku, and that was worse because he wasn’t allowed to think of him during the day, while he was with her, the violent sensation of being pulled in half made him drop his head to his hands. Everything was spinning, skittering out of control, and he’d _let it go_ .  
  
His licked his lips, tried for words. “I don’t...think I know the difference,” he told her faintly, because she deserved the truth. He realized it himself, as he said it.  
  
Something was swelling in him, threatening to swallow him up.  
  
“I think your heart knows, even if you don’t.”  
  
Kairi watched him, silently. She slid a hand over to his shoulder and gave it a single pat, like his coach would do.  
  
“Okay,” she said. “I think you need to figure some things out, but I can’t give you the answers.”  
  
“K-Kairi?” His mouth was working again, but it was all he could say. He wanted to say _don’t leave m_ e, but that was all that came out.  
  
She pressed a kiss to his hair. “Ask your heart, Sora. And call me when you figure it out.”  
  
She left him there, and it felt like the sky had tipped into the sea before he’d realized what happened, and now he wasn’t sure which version was awake.

 

 

\-------

 

 

He had no memory of leaving, but he must have, must have come home and changed into 3 layers of clothes because he was shaking, and drove himself to the dance studio, because the next thing he knew he was staring at his own face in the floor to ceiling mirrors, and it felt more like home than he’d realized he was _missing_ in his long absence.

A few years ago Aqua had pressed the silver keys into his hands with her knowing, sad smile. _If it gets to be too much_ , she told him. _You always have a home here._

The studio was eerily silent, this time of night, and he wondered what he had come to _do_. The doors creaked too loud on their hinges and echoed ominously in the empty space; they reminded him of an atrium on a different night.

But there was no one here, this time: just him and the ghosts.

His eyes found his own in the mirror, and they were bloodshot and red-ringed. The gray hoodie he wore was one he hadn’t touched since before he’d really stopped dancing—had stolen it from Riku’s house, once, when he was over, and it was frayed in places from his nervous fingers. He’d forgotten that, forgotten how many pieces of Riku he’d been hoarding, clutching to himself all these years without even thinking about it, holding so tightly it was no wonder Riku left. Sora was probably suffocating him without realizing.

Two versions of him, a reflection and the reality. He had no idea which one was real. Maybe they both were just refractions of the truth.

He had pictured it, in the diner. Just once. Had slipped, replaced the couple in his mind with Sora and Riku, had pictured a single, soft kiss, and then everything had come crashing down around him.

He realized he hadn’t been _alone_ in months _,_ had filled up the vacant space in his heart with other people that didn’t quite fit, contorted them into shapes that fit into boxes—alone, he had no idea what was real, anymore. There was a hurricane in his head and he didn’t know which way was _out_.

He stalked over to the mirror before he knew he’d moved, pulled back and slammed his fist into the glass. He didn’t know what he’d expected—the pain, yes, _wanted_ that, even—had maybe expected the glass to shatter, a million shards in his fist a satisfying end to his motion. Some kind of equal and opposite reaction, something deserved for ruining it all.

Instead, the glass was stronger, or he was weaker, than his image. All he received was the pain.

He was crying before he knew what happened, dragged his knuckles on the glass the whole way down, hair all in his eyes, leaving a streak behind him on the perfect surface. Crumpled into himself at the bottom, he hunched over like a child, cradled his sore hand and sobbed for every second he hadn’t _known_ the truth. 

He had no right to tell Riku anything about fear, not now, not anymore. Here he was, desperately, unspeakably afraid to face himself.

His hands were shaking as he scrolled through the phone for a song, something, any noise to drown out the pressure in his skull, the weight of the silence. It was going to escape him one way or another, so he may as well let it out.

He stood there for eons, probably--clinging to the side of a parapet because he was afraid to face the fall.

Covering his face with his hands-- _like a blindfold_ , he thought--he took first position.

He was a kid again, in the mirror, watching himself in his first show-- _The Nutcracker, he remembered, because it was close to Christmas and his mom missed it because she always did,_ and the movement of his arms and hands, reaching, bled out of every pore, dark and wishful and aching, and filled the room with dreams.

Then, he was older, _and his mom was at the kitchen table studying when he tugged her arm until she told him if it was weird to think a boy was pretty. Don’t you mean handsome? She had asked him. No, he insisted, because Riku was beautiful, and he was_ sure _of that. She never told him one way or the other, and he had slid that into a lock box at the bottom of his heart._

_This time he was 13, and his mom was asleep on the couch when he had gotten home from school, so Ven made them lunch like he always did, because she was always so tired between her jobs and school they knew she needed the rest. The photo was by her feet, and Sora hurled it, crashed it against the wall until Ven helped him sweep up the glass._

_Sora was 15, and Ven was leaving for college, his car loaded with everything he owned, and he crushed Sora to him and was whispering_ take care of her _into his hair, and Sora wasn’t sure he could, but he would try,_ and the Sora in the mirror was clutching at the open air and falling backwards, flipped, down and down and down.

Around the room, he went--a pirouette, two, three--a carousel of memories chasing him all the way round, spun until he was so dizzy he couldn’t see anymore, wasn’t sure his eyes were closed or not, and wrenched himself out of it, violently, into another spin and _leap_ , thrown to the ground on his hands and knees like he’d been hurled across the room.

He was taking himself apart, layer by layer, peeling apart twelve years of memories, rearranging them into a story like he’d done with Riku so many times before. _The story of a life._

His heart awoke in the wreckage, burst from the sea and took its first greedy, selfish breaths of air, and he _breathed_ too.

He dropped his hands, shaking, already knew what he’d see there, this time, in the mirror. _Riku_ was staring back at him, in his mind, long silver hair and eyes so green they would glint in the light, Sora was sure. He so fiercely _missed_ those eyes.

 _The truth_ settled there, in the space he’d hollowed out for it between his ribs, the place he’d cleared off for it like a space on a wall.

He danced, and, unbidden, the Riku in his mind moved with him, and it was _his_ dream, so they were dancing _together._ Riku’s hands were on his face, and he turned, one leg extended, and his hands were on his waist. Felt the ghost sensation of his arms around him and wanted to _cry_ with it, poured that into a split and a peel off the floor, the movement _softer_ and lilting and gentle, liquid and satin, an exposed nerve in the open air.

Pictured, finally, meeting his lips with his own, felt the way he would twine his hands in that wild hair and never let him go, not again, if he could help it, and he was dancing—no, he was _flying_ , buoyed on the back of that feeling, the feeling he knew, now, for what it was—swore he was in the air the longest he’d even been, rolled and came to a halt, staring up at the ceiling, sweat soaked and free.

He was empty.

Twelve years of memories reordered themselves in his mind and clicked into place, the key for the lock on his chest.

Connected, finally, the two versions became one, and with it, like a _Coda_ , came _the answer_.

 

\-------

 

She answered on the second ring.

“Hey Kairi,” he told her, without preamble, catching his own eyes in the mirror. He looked wretched, clothes ruffled and covered in dust from the floor, streaks on his black pants, but they also looked like _him_ . _Just_ him. His willed his voice to be strong.

“You found your answer,” she said, at the same time. “I’m glad, because I found mine too.”

“Yeah?” A slow smile was starting across his face in the mirror, even though it was still tear streaked. He didn’t even know why, anymore, just felt like a unstoppered bottle, free and empty.

“Yeah.” He could picture the way she was twirling her hand around her fingers, like she did when she was on the phone. “I’ve...thought about it for a while. She’s...really great.”

He almost laughed, a hysterical giggle barely held back. _Of course. Of_ course.

“You were too good for me anyway, Kairi.” The strangeness of saying that, for the first time—acknowledging it was over—should have felt weird, but didn’t.

“Oh Sora,” she told him, and it was sad. “You’re the best.”

“Are we...okay?”

Maybe it had been over for a long time. Maybe it had never begun.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. We will be.”

He laid back against the cool floor and scrubbed at his eyes. He had a feeling he’d be crying for a while, now that he’d started. It was always like that, as long as he remembered.  “How many do-overs do you think we get?”

She considered it, like she did all his most inane questions. “As many as we want, probably."

He hummed. “Okay. In that case,” he began. He raised his hand, like he was with her.  “I’m Sora, I’m an Aries,” he said, choking it around the sudden lump in his throat. “And I’d like to...try to get it right, this time.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sora,” she responded, and he knew she was smiling. He mimed shaking her hand. “Again. And--I’d like that.”

 

————

 

He lasted all of four hours before he was staring at the phone, watching the glowing numbers tick by, and talking himself down from calling Riku. By the time the phone ticked 3 am, he finally lost his fight.

He didn’t know _what_ to say, so he settled on “ _Hey.”_

 _“Sora?”_ came through the phone, and he swore his heart sung like a plucked bowstring, vibrant and strong.

“It didn’t work out. You know. With Kairi,” he started, and he hoped his voice wasn’t shaking, hoped Riku could maybe hear what he _wasn’t_ saying, after so many years. He still felt raw, one big exposed nerve, scraped out inside, hollow and unsure.

Awareness filtered in and out for a while--he wasn’t sure what he was saying, because Riku’s side of the phone was filling up with soft swells of notes and all he knew was he would say anything to keep Riku there, to know that he was _listening_ , and alive, and _real_.

“I _don’t know who I am anymore_ ,” he told him, voice trembling with sobs, maybe--and that was _true_.

“I _do_ ,” said Riku, and that was also _true._

They laid there for too long, listening to the other breathe, and Sora watched the sun rise through the blinds and pictured Riku, looking up at the same sky, the same clouds, and same breaking rays of light, and something in his chest lifted.

Riku said something, so soft it was almost a whisper, a trick of his ears.

“I was just...jealous, I think. I thought you were…”

“I know,” Sora said, just as gentle. His eyes felt gummed together, sore from crying and on the edge of sleep. “I just wish you would have told me.”

“I wish I would have too,” Riku allowed.

He pressed his face tighter into the pillow, and Riku’s borrowed hoody, and willed his voice to not betray him.

“Nobody is...ever going to replace you, okay? Ever. You’re my best friend.”

His hand tightened around the phone, tightened with the thing he couldn’t say.

“Besides. You swore fealty to me when we were like, 7. That’s for life. _Oathkeeper_ says so.”

“The way I remember it, _you_ made me your knight, actually. I didn’t even swear an oath,” Riku responded, the hint of a challenge there in his tone.

“It’s the feeling that counts and you _know_ it.” He _did_ know it, because as they grew up Sora kept rereading the series to the point Riku gifted him his own set so he would stop stealing his, keeping them until the spines broke and all the pages had creases and underlines.

“I’m _pretty_ sure the oath is the magically binding part,” Riku said, the teasing tone coming through. Despite himself, Sora was already smiling. 

“I _know_ you’re not arguing me on _Oathkeeper_ lore at 5 in the morning, because so help me God, Riku, I am exhausted and you _still_ will not win.”

Sora held his breath for a few beats of silence, and then Riku was laughing, long and full bodied, laughing and wheezing until he was crying, probably, until the phone cut out and muffled because he was probably curling around his stomach, the way Sora hadn’t seen him laugh since they were kids, and Sora was laughing too, because they had been speaking again for a few hours tops and their first fight was going to over the backstory of a _children’s book series._

“God,” Riku gasped out, breaking into giggles every so often. “I fucking _missed_ you.”

“I missed you too,” Sora replied, like some furnace was rearranging his chest around itself. It chased the shadows away. “Now come home so we can stop being stupid.”

“As you wish,” he said, in his most knightly tone.

 

\-------

 

A few weeks into their reunion, it was like they had never been apart, Sora-and-Riku, and he was practicing for his auditions.

“ _What_?” Sora asked him distractedly. He had stopped to scribble down a note on a piece of paper he’d taped to the mirror at eye level, but he felt Riku’s eyes on his back.

“Nothing,” came the response, a hint of amusement there. “Just can’t remember the last time I saw you doing homework. Maybe you _have_ changed.”

“I actually _do_ plan stuff sometimes, Riku,” he said, half-paying attention. He was trying to remember the sequence he’d just done, but it sometimes took a few seconds to translate the motion in his brain to something else. “What was it...Shit. You distracted me. Do you remember what I did just now?”

“Before the spin or after?”

“Before,” Sora told him. “But after the drop.”

“I remember but I don’t know if I can—you know I don’t—“

“I know,” Sora interrupted, waving his hands. “Just do—I don’t know, hand gestures. I’ll know what you mean.” A slow smile was crawling its way across its face. _You also owe me for being distracting_ , he didn’t say.

He had his eyes closed, and that crease between his brows he got when he was focusing deeply on musical scores, and if Sora allowed himself a moment to stare and take it in, that was only fair, because when Riku moved, it was beautiful, and Sora had always thought so. He had a natural fluid grace most people would kill for, if he ever cared to do something with it—Sora was constantly watching him, cataloging all the small gestures he did when he was talking, or running a hand through his hair, or rubbing at his ear when he was thinking.

Now, he was attempting a clumsy _pas de chat_ , hopping from foot to foot, unsure, like he was following a map behind his eyes. Sora thought he looked a little like a baby deer as he wandered through the sequence.

The smile was threatening to break from its bounds.

When he had stopped, Riku’s face was steadily going beat red as he took in the shit-eating grin. “Wait a minute. You didn’t actually _need_ me to do all that, did you?”

The second Riku actually looked his way he burst out laughing, bracing on his thighs to keep from falling. “You looked like you were having fun,” Sora wheezed around the giggles. “So I didn’t want to stop you.”

Riku dropped his head to his hands and groaned, so Sora, wiping away tears, patted him on the shoulder. Even his ears were steadily going pink. “I’m not making fun of you! Seriously, it helped me. Thanks.”

Green eyes found his in the mirror, between the cage of fingers. “I don’t know how you do that so easily.”

“Dance?” Sora asked. He had lost his pencil again but Riku tapped behind his own ear, so he felt for it and remembered he’d stashed one there. He wanted to write the missing steps before he forgot. “You just lead with your heart, and then there isn’t room for stuff like feeling stupid.”

“Wish I could do that, sometimes,” Riku muttered, his gaze going soft and far away. Unthinkingly, Sora had reached out and turned his face back, the gentlest brush of fingers before he retracted. For a second, Riku’s eyes arrested him there, unguarded and free, and he had to grapple for what he’d wanted to say, before.

“Probably would be better to lead with my brain, sometimes.” Sora laughed and scratched at his cheek. “At least for my grades. My mom would be happy.”

Riku smirked. “Your heart can’t do your calc homework for you?”

“No, but it tells me you’re an asshole,” he quipped. He quirked an eyebrow. “Why do I put up with this again?” 

He looked at him with such a soft, gentle, hesitant, expression it broke Sora’s heart. “When you figure that out, let me know.”

Sora snorted, then thunked him on the chest. “Stop it. I can feel you sinking.”

“Can’t help it,” Riku sighed, looking like he wanted to hide behind bangs he no longer had, guilty green against his skin. 

“I know,” Sora reassured, patting him on the cheek. “‘Least I’m here to pull you out.”

He intertwined their hands, soft and hesitant, just the gentlest brush of fingers.

“You’re the best, you know,” he told him, in the space of a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t trust anybody else to help me with this.”

“Sometimes you sound like one of those embarrassing t-shirts your mom wears.”

“Who do you think buys her those t-shirts?” He wiggled his eyebrows until he wrestled a laugh from Riku, and Sora had an excellent view as his eyes scrunched up into crescents.

Riku closed his fingers around their hands, and it felt like a beginning, an _entrée de ballet_ , in the space between them.

 

\-------

 

The first time Riku returned to his house after an eternity away, it was all he could do to keep his mom from smothering him.

He heard them laughing in the next room, his mom grilling him on piano and school and college as they dried the dishes, and he couldn’t remember the last time he mom had laughed so openly, like that. Maybe they were...good for each other. All of them, together.

Sora was watching them through the window in the kitchen wall, a soft smile blooming over his features.

Ven, seated across from him, stopped chewing his sandwich. He narrowed his eyes at Sora, calculating. Back and forth, they went, between Sora’s face and Riku’s back, once, twice.

“Wait. You... _like_ him, don’t you?” 

Sora started, almost punched himself from the force as his chin had slipped off his own hand. Cold panic gripped his throat, his mind sounding an alarm signal that sounded a lot like _run for cover._

“Of course I like him, he’s my best friend!” He hated the way his voice _cracked_ at the end, almost winced at the guilty, curling thing that raised its head from his stomach.

He clapped his hands over his own mouth, afraid he’d alerted Riku to their conversation. He held his breath a second too long, eyes pinned on them, and at the lack of reaction, let it out. 

Ven raised an eyebrow at the display in that way he did when Sora was bullshitting him. “Okay,” he said, slowly. “But you _like_ him, too.” 

“Haha—W-w-what makes you say that?” He tried to take a sip of water but the glass in his hand was trembling too much, a house in a hurricane. He spilled some on his hand and the table, and Ven’s gaze went between that and his face, repeatedly. He tried to set it down and it was nearly a clatter in the silent kitchen, he had to lunge to right it before it fell over completely.

“Just a hunch,” he responded, drily. “You’re dripping.”

Ven handed him the towel like a trade for his dignity. Sora wanted to _die._

“I’m happy for you, though,” he said, conversationally. And he really did _look_ it. “Riku’s a great guy. You probably need somebody like that to keep you out of trouble and all, since I’ll be at college,” he said, sipping his juice. He nodded to himself, as if in punctuation.

His heart warring in his chest with a wave of disbelief, he felt himself smile.

That night, in the safety of his room, something had... _shifted._ Maybe he only saw it because he was looking for it, a minor hue shift in a bigger painting.

 He had never been so glad to be _known_ , because he was afraid if he spoke, he would have spilled everything and scared Riku off again like he had in the first place.

As it was, Riku's eyes found his in the dark that night, and something in his chest lurched forward and dragged him with it, and he touched his hand, and Riku dragged him into a hug, and suddenly he desperately wanted to cry again, because it didn’t feel like _nothing_ \--was so far from _nothing_ he swore he was levitating.

“ _I missed you_ ,” Sora told him, in lieu of the thing he wanted to say, in the safety of the dark and the quiet, and he was surrounded by Riku, whose head dropped to his shoulder automatically.

Riku was breathing shakily, and Sora desperately hoped he wasn't _alone_ in this when his hands came up to grasp Riku's shoulder blades, pulling at his shirt.

They hadn't slept in the same bed in years--eventually they’d gotten old enough Riku had pulled away and taken his hugs and touches with him, and Sora had felt colder in their absence.

As it was, Riku pulled back, but Sora silently pulled him down with him, his heart hammering so loud he was sure Riku would _know_ , but wasn't sure if he cared, anymore--drunk on the feeling, on the _freedom_.

They were entwined, crammed into his hilariously small twin bed, Riku's head tucked under his chin. Sora carded his hair--it was shorter now, he'd lost a few inches when he'd been away, and Sora hoped that was all he'd lost, in that time.

He'd only seen Riku cry twice in his life--once, when he’d broken his wrist after falling, and once, and only once, the day his parents' divorce had gone through. This may have been the third time, but he wasn't sure, and if it was, he said nothing, afraid to break whatever cocoon of safety they'd been rebuilding. He hummed for him, instead--he couldn't sing, really--but he hummed him a lullaby, all the same, his heart close to bursting, and his arms just as full.

The realization felt like every time he had to demonstrate a new dance for class, adrenaline and joy all mixed together in a _pas de deux_ in his chest.

Riku’s breath was tickling at his neck.

He didn’t sleep at all, that night, but he felt better than he had in years.

 

\-------

 

The next several weeks were a constant stream of Sora desperately trying not to let on that _everything had changed,_ which Riku was not making easier by constantly touching, smiling, or generally being doting in his direction.

It turned out he was _right_ , though: Kairi and Riku got on like a house on fire, helped along by Sora’s ability to find the common ground between any opposing parties, which in this case was _Oathkeeper._ It was nice to have lively debates with more than 2 participants--more, when Olette was around, and if Sora saw their hands joined quietly under the table, he didn’t mention it, content in the knowledge his other best friend was happy.

 A feeling of... _finality_ was bearing down on all of them, and some part of him knew he had to _do something_ before he was thrown from the parapet. So: he did. He swallowed whatever pride he had left asked Naminé to teach him piano.

_“I don’t---Riku tried to teach me before and I just can never seen to pick it up--”_

_“He’s never tried to teach you like this,” she told him patiently, gesturing to the keys. They were all color coded, a rainbow of post it notes with little letters scribbled on top. Some of them even had drawings. “I’ve taught lots of kids with this system. You can’t possibly be worse than them.”_

_“Were you perhaps distracted by his_ forest eyes _the last time you tried to learn?” The question came from Kairi, on his left. He regretted ever telling her anything._

 _He choked, coughed, and she had to slam him in the back, hard._  

_“Yeah,” she laughed at him. “That’s what I thought. Hopeless.”_

_He had gone bright red. “I’m never telling you anything ever again.”_

_“This is just...this was a stupid idea. I don’t even know if this is going to work, or if he feels the same, or--”_

_“Sora,” Naminé deadpanned. “Trust me when I tell you I had to listen to the absolute most depressing renditions of Moonlight Sonata I’ve ever heard for weeks. For weeks, Sora! I’ll never be able to play that song again! That was a perfectly beautiful piece and he_ slaughtered _it.”_  

_“You have a point,” he muttered. “How fast can you teach me piano?”_

_“How badly do you want to impress him?” His pained face probably gave it away, because Naminé patted him on the head like he was a kid._

_“Trust me. I taught Riku everything he knows.”_  

Nervously wringing his fingers, he was _thinking_ about it as Riku led him to the music room, trying to remember chords and notes and other things it was hard to keep in his head when Riku was _right there and this sure felt like standing on a parapet._

He tried for normalcy, despite the tension bearing down on his shoulders, the pressure that said _do something, stupid_ , _before he walks out of here_ . He didn’t know what he was going to do, yet--just that he _was_ , like how he felt before he danced. He clung to the feeling like a life raft, barely listening to himself talk.

“One more for old time’s sake?” he heard himself say, and the idea was a revelation: yes, of course--that’s what he would _do_. Exactly that. The most importance performance of his life.

He dropped into the stretches, automatically, and it felt like home.

“It’s a...new piece I’ve been working on. A surprise,” he heard Riku say.

You know I love surprises,” Sora told him, his stomach all caged butterflies, when Riku was looking at him like that, like he was _hungry_ , and it had been way too long since he had heard him play, since they had been _this_ \--just...them.

Their usual banter went on as his brain switched to autopilot, all nerves and apprehension. He had no idea what Riku was going to do, here--only knew what he was _hoping_ he’d do, and he was desperately, _hopefully afraid._

He raised his arms, and it was just like the first time, and the vision overlaid in his mind: a smaller Riku, a colder day, and a different life.

“Ready when you are,” Sora breathed, and _begun_.

The sound washed over him like waves at a shore, and for several measures he let it, let the notes drown out the rising panic in his ears, let the music lift his heart and clear his mind and make him an open conduit for the _feeling_ . He was at his _best,_ like this, and he _needed_ to be, for this to work, for Riku to _understand._

_The first part sounded like childhood, and days spent reading Oathkeeper, sprawled out on their stomachs on Riku’s bed, pressed close as thieves, so he did a pirouette, and then an arabesque simple and sweet like a ballerina in a music box, and the feeling pressed close and held him there, intimate and sweet and building into something larger._

_Movement took him then, spirited him away on wings, a thousand currents of air--he lost awareness of anything but the song, and the feeling, and now it felt like blooming, a seed sprouting in the midst of rain and reaching for the sun, and Sora was bending, and breaking, because this feeling he knew, the feeling of darkened green eyes and a divide between them, and Sora was on the floor, clutching his heart like was it being cleaved in two, like it shattered, arched and reached for relief--and it came, because the song broke, split cleanly in two._

_The crescendo came with it, and Sora let himself feel every time he’d thought of Riku and realized he loved him, all 12 years of mistaken glances and a million touches, a billion flashes of light between them like an endless field of stars, and he pictured it, how he’d pull him in and finally tell him how he felt, and the song was over,_ the final notes depositing him gently back on the shore. He may have been crying, somewhere far away--but more than that--he was _free_.

“ _It’s beautiful,_ ” he told him, like that was anywhere close to what it was, what he knew now, for sure, was between them--there was nothing else it could _be_.

“A love song?” he said, teasing, and then Riku surprised him again.

“It’s...actually, it’s….about the way you make me feel.”

Everything in his mind silenced, coalesced, and sharpened into diamond-like clarity.

He joined him on the bench and prayed his voice would stay stable. He was shaking, he was sure of it, with the effort of containing himself long enough to do this, his heart singing in his skin. This was _it_ , the moment. Time to fly.

“It sounds okay alone, but...I think it wants to be played together,” Sora told him, meeting Riku’s scared, tender eyes, and summoned Naminé into his mind, and touched the keys, and filled the room with what was in his heart. He touched his hands and thought _there’s no need to be afraid._

The keys came back to him when he was most in need of them, and he mimicked Riku’s hands, played their counterpoint, the melody and the harmony together and mixing into something they had never made before, something that swelled and broke over them both, and the sound rung out long past when their hands had stilled.

“Come with me,” Sora said, and his hands slotted with Riku’s like they had always been there, like they had a thousand times before, and the look in his eyes reflected his own, and he thought _we’re just mirrors, in the end._

“Sora?” Came Riku’s question, soft and hesitant and lilting.

“Trust me,” He said, because Riku had nothing to be afraid of, anymore, because Sora would catch him.

“Dance with me,” he told him, and he thought _I’ve been waiting a lifetime._

“Sora—you know I’m not good at—“ Riku tried, and trust Riku to ruin _his own_ big romantic moment. He had to fight not to roll his eyes, instead covered Riku’s with his hands, and pictured a smaller Riku, his own freckled hands against his skin, warm and lovely and perfect. He felt the smile spreading across his face, and chanced a look down--to see the same crawling across Riku’s.

“You still hear it, right? Our song,” Sora said, and he thought _meet me in the middle._

“Of course,” Riku responded, and Sora was glad he knew him as _well_ as he did, inside and out. How lucky they were to be here, in the same time, king and knight, lock and key.

Riku took his hands, and the last wall between them fell, and he heard it echo in his mind, and the cave of his chest--echo with the thought of _I love you I love you I love you._ Their song-- _Dearly Beloved_ \--swelled in his ears and pulled until he had to hum it, hum it like it was a lullaby, the only thing tethering them to earth.

They looked into his, Riku’s eyes, and he brought their foreheads together, overwhelmed and shaking and his chest full of the _truth._

“Lead with this, for once. Okay?” He whispered, and he thought _let me show you how to do this,_ and arranged Riku’s hands on his waist, and it felt so much like home between his hands that it was hard to breathe.

 _Why didn’t I do this sooner_ , he thought, and he began to move, and they moved together, swaying, his hands looped around Riku’s neck, and it was better than his dreams.

“I love you too, Riku. I think I always have,” he told him, forehead pressed to his own, and it was the easiest thing he’d ever said, looked at him long and deep and thought of a field of stars between them.

“I’m glad you told me,” he told him, for every time Riku had had to hold it back, for every time he’d had to hide his light.

Riku enfolded him in his arms, and Sora was crying because Riku was, and he clung to him like a life raft, both of them adrift on the open sea.

“Sorry,” Riku told him, and Sora grazed his cheek with his palm until Riku looked at him, soft and slow and gentle, and shifted his bangs aside, and thought _you have nothing to be sorry for._

“You’re _beautiful_ ,” he told him, for every time he’d never said it, working around a sheen of his own tears. He thumbed Riku’s away, and they were warm and buoyant and grinning, both of them, and he thought their hearts must have been saying _finally, finally. Two heartbeats, as one._

He pulled Riku down to meet him, face between his hands, and finally, finally claimed his lips with his own, and it felt like _flying,_ laughing and tumbling _,_ wings spread wide and falling into the cloudless sky.

 

\-------

 

In their entwined forms was a _Coda_ , a mirror, a question and an answer: two hearts at the same tempo, beating in tune.

**Author's Note:**

> Similar to Tempo, I made looser but liberal use of dance terms in this fic, mostly borrowed from ballet, which is the root of many different styles of dance, like modern/lyrical.
> 
> Here they are:
> 
> Glissade - A gliding, traveling step.  
> Tendu - A basic ballet movement, usually done at a barre, where you slide one leg out with toe pointed.  
> Relevé - To rise on tip-toe or into demi-pointe or pointe. In this fic it would be demi because male dancers don't typically dance en poite.  
> Pivot turn - Actually borrowed from jazz! To pivot on the foot while turning.  
> En Arrière - Away from the audience on stage  
> Pas de deux - A partner dance in ballet, usually romantic in nature. Think Swan Lake.  
> Entrée de ballet - The beginning of a Pas de deux  
> Coda - The climax/dramatic part of a Pas De Deux
> 
> A note for Tempo as well--a question and an answer is a concept borrowed from songwriting. In other to create tension, you introduce a question, and another part in the piece answers it, and so on and so forth until you get an entire piece of music, like dearly beloved.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you love my soft music boys as much as I do :)


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